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A review by imperfectcj
Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle
3.0
In the movie Rosemary's Baby (one of my favorite movies of all time), the character Hutch is described as being an author of "boys' adventure stories." I never knew what that meant, but it's possible that Otto of the Silver Hand might be a boys' adventure story.
There's honor and revenge and violence (thankfully without gore). It reminded me of the old movies made under the "Code" back in the day in its fairly simple presentation of good and evil. Even the dude who's finally trying to do right can't have a happy ending because he's done so much bad in the past. Not that I wanted things to be hunky-dory for him, but I would prefer a little more of a reward for having a nuanced emotional life and an evolving sense of morality. Good comes only to the unambiguously and consistently good, which doesn't give much hope to the rest of us. Of course, the good have some pretty nasty things happen to them, too, so there's not a lot of hope for anyone in this book, really. Which now that I think of it, is a little odd for a children's story. I might have to bump my rating up a star just for that.
There's honor and revenge and violence (thankfully without gore). It reminded me of the old movies made under the "Code" back in the day in its fairly simple presentation of good and evil. Even the dude who's finally trying to do right can't have a happy ending because he's done so much bad in the past. Not that I wanted things to be hunky-dory for him, but I would prefer a little more of a reward for having a nuanced emotional life and an evolving sense of morality. Good comes only to the unambiguously and consistently good, which doesn't give much hope to the rest of us. Of course, the good have some pretty nasty things happen to them, too, so there's not a lot of hope for anyone in this book, really. Which now that I think of it, is a little odd for a children's story. I might have to bump my rating up a star just for that.